A Man Alone
' |image= |series= |production=40511-403 |producer(s)= |story=Gerald Sanford Michael Piller |script=Michael Piller |director=Paul Lynch |imdbref=tt0708494 |guests=Max Grodénchik as Rom, Aron Eisenberg as Nog, Rosalind Chao as Keiko O'Brien, Edward Laurence Albert as Zayra, Peter Vogt as Bajoran #1, Stephen James Carver as Ibudan, Tom Klunis as Lamonay S, Scott Trost as Bajoran Officer, Patrick Cupo as Bajoran Man, Kathryn Graf as Bajoran Woman, Hana Hatae as Molly O'Brien, Diana Cignoni as Dabo Girl, Judi Durand as Cardassian Computer Voice and Mark Allen Shepherd as Morn (uncredited) |previous_production=Emissary |next_production=Past Prologue |episode=DS9 S01E03 |airdate=17 January 1993 |previous_release=Past Prologue |next_release=Babel |story_date(s)=Stardate 46384 - 46421.5 (2369) |previous_story=Past Prologue |next_story= Ship in a Bottle Babel }} Summary Odo has become worried at the number of new people arriving at the station due to the newly discovered Bajoran wormhole. While talking with Quark in his bar, Odo observes a man he recognizes and demands he leave the station. The man refuses and the two get into a fight that is broken up by Sisko. Odo explains to Sisko that the man is Ibudan, a smuggler of goods to Bajorans during the Cardassian Occupation. Though considered a hero by some, Odo states that Ibudan let a young girl die when her parents could not afford the smuggled goods, and later killed a Cardassian officer. He has since gone free after the end of the Occupation. Sisko warns Odo that he cannot take action against Ibudan without any evidence of a crime being committed. Later, Ibudan is found dead in one of Quark's holosuites. One of Ibudan's friends reports to Sisko and Kira that Ibudan was afraid Odo would kill him. No foreign DNA is found at the scene of Ibuban's murder, and the general populace of the station start to become suspicious of Odo, a shapeshifter without any DNA. However, Sisko does order a formal investigation and temporarily relieves Odo as head of security. Bashir discovers that Ibudan was performing medical experiments on a strange material in his quarters despite having no training as a doctor or scientist. Bashir continues to observe the samples in Sick Bay. The crowds on the station become more hostile believing Odo is the murderer, and Odo is forced to hide in his office to avoid a mob forming outside despite Sisko's attempts to calm them down. Bashir suddenly arrives with new evidence: the sample from Ibudan has started growing into a clone of Ibudan. Sisko, Bashir and Odo determine that the murdered Ibudan was also another clone, set up to incriminate Odo. They discover the real Ibudan hiding on the station, and now with evidence, Odo is able to arrest him for the murder of his clone. In a side plot, Miles O'Brien struggles to help his wife Keiko O'Brien get used to living on the station, as she is unable to follow her interests. Miles comes up with the idea of starting a classroom for Keiko to teach the resident children and others that come to the station, which Keiko is happy to pursue. =Errors and Explanations Plot Oversights # The Bajoran couple apparently not noticing Nog when he places the box on the floor. Perhaps they are deliberatly ignoring him. # Bashir concentrating on hair follicles. Hair without follicles would contain little or no DNA. # The story apparently covering two weeks. It would take a while to fully grow and prepare the clone. # Keiko being allowed to operate a school. She may have a acquired a teaching certificate during her carrer as a botonist, in order to pass her skills and knowledge to others in the profession. Changed Premises # Ibudan - a black marketering and murderer - only being imprisoned, while O'Brien was threatened with execution for mearly being suspected of smuggling weapons, and Tom Riker initially facing execution for 'invading' Cardassian space. Maybe Cardassian society considers weapon smuggling and carrying out an invasion to be more serious. # Apparent reduction in the time before Odo needs to regenerate, from 18 hours here to 16 hours in The Storyteller. Possibly a reaction to his increased workload following the discovery of the wormhole, especially if his conversation with Quark is anything to go by. # When Odo captures Ibudan at the end of the episode, he tells him that killing your own clone is still murder. Apparently, the Bajorans are much more enlightened than the Federation. In Up the Long Ladder (TNG), Riker killed his own clone, apparently, without any legal ramifications. The UTLL clones were illegally created using cells stolen from Riker and Paulaski, and were destroyed before they were fully formed. Equipment Oddities # Absence of DNA from other holosuite users. Either it had been cleaned before Ibudan's session, or no-one else had used it recently. # At one point someone throws something at Odo's window & it cracks. A beautiful effect...but what happened to Transparent Aluminum? Either the Cardassians didn't have access to Transparent Aluminum, or they didn't consider it necessary for the internal doors. Nit Central # Murray Leeder on Wednesday, March 10, 1999 - 1:21 pm: So how come the word "Shifter" is visible in Odo's trashed office, even though the angry mob didn't have any humans in it? Rene on Thursday, March 11, 1999 - 6:50 am: Because the UT somehow knows that there are humans watching the logs of this incident in the 20th century, :) Seniram This may be an example of Bajorans using Federation Standard to get their point across. # Dan R. on Sunday, March 14, 1999 - 5:21 pm: I saw this ep again this week on a repeat on UPN 20 in DC...I can't believe how different Rom was!!! Rom seemed kinda nasty or at the least: Rude! He didn't act as idiotic and dingy as he does later on....I love the Rom we see today better than the old one that was in this episode… He obviously learned to improve his behaviour ! # Aaron Dotter on Saturday, October 23, 1999 - 5:21 pm: Bashir is called to the holosuite for "medical assistance". A stabbing sounds like a medical EMERGENCY, not something that needs assistance. Or did Sisko alrady know that Ibudan was dead? Perhaps whoever called Bashir expected the good doctor to be able to revive the recently deceased victim. # NarkS on Thursday, August 17, 2000 - 3:56 pm: Odo asks how long "he" has been on the station, looking in a general direction at a bunch of people standing around a dabo table. How does Quark know who he's talking about? Cybermortis on Sunday, May 04, 2008 - 5:47 pm: Odo and Quark have known each other long enough that they can often figure out what the other means. In this case Quark knows Odo well enough to know that 'He' means Ibudan. Seniram Perhaps Ibudan was the only immediately recognisable person in the group. # Why would Ibudan put something like "Odo" in his personal calendar file, knowing he would look there? Duke of Earl Grey on Thursday, February 15, 2001 - 1:44 pm: I thought Ibudan put "Odo" in his personal calendar to suggest that he was going to meet with Odo at the time of his "death" as part of his framing scheme. dotter31 on Tuesday, June 26, 2007 - 6:17 pm: The better question is, why would he need to put anything about it in his personal calendar? Would he have a problem remembering his big plot that he set up? It's not like he would forget that he's framing someone. # Isn't it possible that someone entered the holosuite but just didn't leave any DNA evidence? Is the investigatory process so complete that they can completely rule out someone else? How could they do that? Beaming in would have left a trace in the transporter system. # Out of the 500 people that don't like Odo, there isn't one on the station? Does everyone there like Odo because they have to? Brian on Sunday, August 20, 2000 - 12:00 am: Odo didn't say the 500 people did not like him. He said that they hate him so much that they would try to kill or frame him. The people on the station who do not like him just trash his office and say bad things about him. # Is Bashir really an expert in forensics? Why is he the one sweeping for evidence? For that matter, why is Bashir still using a microscope and sample dish? This is the 24th century! dotter31 on Tuesday, June 26, 2007 - 6:17 pm: I would imagine that some forensic classes are available at Starfleet Medical, even if Bashir is not an expert. As for using a sample dish, Bashir would need to collect any physical evidence for a trial, not just readings and an analysis of them. Jean Stone on Wednesday, March 05, 2008 - 12:48 am: Two explanations. The Reality one: It's more interesting for the recurring characters to do these things than to get some extra for a few shots. The In-universe one: DS9 isn't a starship with a big crew; Bashir may well be the person best qualified to gather forensic evidence among the limited staff. # Keith Alan Morgan (Kmorgan) on Wednesday, August 30, 2000 - 11:47 pm: Phil listed the first Stardate for this episode as 46384 from Ibudan's diary. However, in his Ruminations, he mentions an earlier Stardate of 46383 from Ibudan's diary. Why not list that as the first Stardate, instead? That diary entry may be from before the events depicted in the episode. # Jadzia says that sex is a weakness of the young. Curzon Dax didn't seem all that young to me. He's still young compared to the symbiont! # On the top left of the school board is a diagram of either Sylvia or Korob from the Classic Trek episode Catspaw. The interesting thing is that if you watch Catspaw, nobody is recording Sylvia & Korob's true appearance and their bodies dissolve so no autopsy can be performed. So how can there be a picture of them? (Another contact with that species perhaps?) It could be a computer simulation, based on the physical descriptions in the post mission reports submitted by Kirk and the others. # Rene on Monday, January 07, 2002 - 2:48 pm: Wouldn't the fact that the murder happened while Odo was in his bucket be a good defense? Why wouldn't it? I mean, it's a fact he has to return to a liquid state on a regular basis. Brian Fitzgerald on Monday, January 07, 2002 - 8:08 pm: Because he could have returned to his previous state at any other point during the day that he was not around others, but claimed that he was in the bucket during the murder. Surely he doesn't have witnesses who saw him every other moment of the day. # Anonymous on Thursday, March 21, 2002 - 11:24 am: During the investigation, no one seems to consider the posibility, that the murderer was a hologram. Someone could have reprogrammed the holosuite and there wouldn't have been any traces of DNA either. That would require the person responsible to alter the holosuite computer without Quark and O'Brien realising. # Cybermortis on Sunday, May 04, 2008 - 5:47 pm: If I get murdered I think the last people I'd want investigating would be anyone on DS9. They make this great point that only Odo could have slipped into the holodeck and stabbed Ibudan without opening the doors...one rather large problem with this that no one, from the stations detective (Odo) to the resident scientist (Dax) to the genius that is Bashir wonders is how, exactly, Odo could have oozed through the door carrying a knife. Everyone also seems to overlook the fact that Odo doesn't need to take a knife with him. He's a shapeshifter, he can turn his arm into a knife if he really wanted to kill someone. What would he do with the blood? # A clone of Ibudan shouldn't have any memories from the original, in fact it would be a very large baby and incapable of doing anything for itself. If the clone does have Ibudan's memories (for sake of argument lets assume you can record memories and put them into a clone) then how come the clone doesn't know he's going to be killed? I mean, the only reason Ibudan created the clone in the first place was to kill him and place the blame on Odo, and if the clone has Ibudans memories then he should know this. Did Ibudan strike anyone else as being so obsessed with framing Odo that his clone would be willing to be killed for it? Did the clone look even slightly worried knowing he was going to die very shortly? Ibudan probably modified that part of the memory, just as Lister did in Red Dwarf when pasting part of his memory into Rimmer. # Luigi_novi (Luigi_novi) on Tuesday, January 13, 2015 - 3:17 pm: What was Sisko planning on doing for Jake’s education before Keiko came up with the idea of the school? Jake talks about being bored studying alone on a computer. Are you telling me that officers on space stations like Sisko expect their children to educate themselves? Why doesn’t Starfleet provide schools for crewmen with children stationed on bases and space stations? Maybe the Federation uses an updated version of the remote learning system used in Australia. # At the end of Act 2, Odo, Kira, Dax and Bashir go over the facts regarding Ibudan’s murder: The computer logged only two times in which the holosuite doors opened (once when Ibudan entered, and once when the killer left), the only biological residue Bashir found in the holosuite was Ibudan’s, and there were no beamouts. Odo concludes that the only way someone could have gotten in was if someone could slip through the cracks in the door, like a shapeshifter. While I appreciate Odo’s honesty and objectivity in admitting that he is a suspect, this is not exactly true. First of all, if Odo or some other shapeshifter slipped through the cracks in the door to kill Ibudan, it makes absolutely no sense that the shapeshifting killer would then open the door and walk through it when leaving, rather than simply slipping back through the cracks. Second, there is another way someone other than a shapeshifter could’ve killed Ibudan without entering the room through the door. Someone, either Quark or one of the other Ferengi operating the holosuites, or a hacker, could’ve hacked into the holosuite computer, disengaged the safety protocols, and reprogrammed the holosuite program to create a holocharacter to kill Ibudan. Third, Odo later tells Kira in Act 3 that because of his regeneration cycle, he was in his pail in his office at the time of the murder, and Kira comments that the killer may have planned the murder around Odo’s regeneration cycle. Odo comments that this makes a neat package. Well, it would make a neat package if it occurred today, since the lack of witnesses to corroborate Odo’s alibi, but since Odo’s regeneration cycle is known, the fact that the murder occurred during it means that Odo couldn’t have committed the murder. Moreover, doesn’t the computer track everyone’s movements? Couldn’t its logs confirm where Odo was at the time of the murder? If a hacker had managed to reprogram the holosuite, there would have been evidence of this in the computer system. As for the tracking system, this may not be 100 percent reliable at this point, assuming the timings in the records couldn't be edited. # When creating a clone, don’t the cells turn into an embryo, and then a fetus, and so one? The second clone of Ibudan seen in this episode essentially looks like a blob of organic material, and when it takes the shape of a humanoid, it is of the size of an adult. This is probably a side effect of the accelerated growth. Notes Category:Episodes Category:Deep Space Nine